


maybe tomorrow

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Future Fic, post-season 3, skoulsonfest2k16redux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 00:59:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7554082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A strange woman gets into Coulson's bed in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>Written for the Skoulson RomFest 2k16 Redux - prompt: unconditional</p>
            </blockquote>





	maybe tomorrow

He’s been a light sleeper these months.

Or rather, he doesn’t sleep that well. 

That’s why he hears her come in the moment it happens. He doesn’t even question - once he realizes what’s happening - how she got past the locks on his door.

After so many months of chasing her and this is how their encounter begins.

In the darkness.

(maybe it’s fitting)

A seasoned agent like him, he should be alarmed and ready, feeling a strange presence in his room. But he isn’t. After the initial confusion that lasted a split of a second his body relaxes before his mind catches up with the reason why.

He hears the rustle of the bed sheets and then he feels the mattress lift on his side. He keeps very still, not wanting to disturb whatever is happening. The intruder’s movements are equally careful, and if Coulson wasn’t a light sleeper he wouldn’t have been woken by so small a commotion.

And suddenly that’s how it is: Daisy Johnson is in his bed, lying right next to him.

That easy.

Coulson doesn’t question it. She’s here right now, as improbable and magical as it seems and it almost feels natural, like the illogical state of things was not having Daisy in his life, as her absence was the problem and her body under his sheets is the solution.

He waits while she makes herself comfortable, and his eyes adjust to darkness enough that he can see the shape of her over his pillow. The strange familiarity of her smell comes back to him, and Coulson regrets all the time he wasted when they were living under the same roof and he didn’t-

(he didn’t… what?)

Daisy curls her body, knees towards her chest, making herself small in a way that makes Coulson’s heart shrink as well and he can make a guess as to why she is here tonight, why she _needs_ this. But it’s just that, a guess. The newspaper clippings over his desk tell of Quake’s strength, of property damage, of grateful Inhumans, of annoyed local authorities. They don’t tell a damn word about the rest.

“Bad day at the office?” he asks, breaking the silence.

Daisy lets out a little choked chuckle.

“Something like that,” she says, tone unmistakeable. She is not going to give him details. “Can you help?”

(he’s missed her voice)

“I can try,” Coulson says, moving across the mattress until he can easily wrap one arm around her middle. He doesn’t pull her against him, letting her be the one who reaches back to press her body against his chest.

He wonders if no one has done this for her, hold her like this, all these months she’s been away.

(he hopes someone has)

She shifts easily into his loose embrace. 

“You don’t want to talk about it,” Coulson understands.

“You’ll read it on the news.”

He always does.

He decides not to press.

Instead he draws a loving hand over her face, stroking her neck and hair, caressing the cheek she has exposed. The scar she got from fighting Malick is still there, invisible, but noticeable through tough. Some scars are like that.

Coulson drops his hand to her shoulder. She’s thinner - then again, so is he. He wraps his fingers around the curve, light caresses down her arm and elbow. He follows the folded arm until his fingers find Daisy’s hand in the darkness, resting on the mattress. He laces their fingers together and squeezes hard, digging his nails into the palm.

Daisy lets out a long, content breath. Her body relaxes, it feels like warm liquid filling hooks and crevices in his body.

They stay like that for many minutes, Coulson holding her. He loses sense of time, to be honest, focusing on Daisy’s heartbeat against his chest, which eventually settles into a comfortable, easy rhythm. Coulson can physically notice it, how this is helping her. Well, if not helping, at least comforting her. Her muscles are still tense and Coulson wishes she would fall asleep, get some rest. After all these months, and he imagines Daisy sleeping in his bed, his arms. The image brings him a lot of peace as well.

“Why are you so good to me?” Daisy asks.

“I’m not,” he says. “I mean… why wouldn’t I?”

He can hear her sigh. That’s not a noise he’s heard before. He’s heard Daisy sigh in tiredness and in frustration but never in… how could he describe this noise? It sounds like longing.

“It scares me, it’s always scared me,” she tells him.

Coulson feels a terrible ache in his chest, thinking all this time Daisy has felt in debt to him somehow.

“You don’t have to do anything about it. I don’t need anything from you.”

She moves her knees closer to her chest, dropping her chin. Coulson can see the back of her neck now, the dark hair parting to one side.

“That’s the scary part,” she says.

“You do that all the time. You are so good to people - you never expect anything in return.”

She doesn’t say anything else right away. Coulson pulls her a bit closer yet, wondering how much closer their bodies can get, it’s as if this isn’t enough.

(it’s never enough)

Coulson spent a long time thinking about what Hive did to Daisy, about what it meant for her to be part of something bigger, feel no distance between her and others. He tried to imagine what it felt like, so he could better understand her state of mind when she run and why she keeps being on her own. Doctors said it was like hard drugs. Coulson himself had never tried them but he had a good imagination and knew it was more than that - the illusion of perfect connection. Except it wasn’t an illusion, was it? Of course he understood how Daisy felt like he could never be close enough to people again, their friendship a pale version of what she lost, and even a pale version she felt she didn’t _deserve_ to have.

“I’ve always been scared of getting used to you,” Daisy starts again. “You were so good… I couldn’t think about what might happen if I lost that.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Coulson tells her, rocking their bodies together, nuzzling her neck with his nose.

“No, but _I did_ ,” she replies.

Coulson has rehearsed this in his mind a million times. What he’d tell her when he saw her again, when she tried to apologize for leaving.

(he knew she would try)

But he doesn’t need a script to know what he has to say, what he wants to say.

“I don’t blame you for leaving,” he tells Daisy. “I understood.”

A low chuckle echoes through his bedroom.

“Of course you do,” Daisy says, like she is a bit frustrated about it. Does she want him to get angry at her? Maybe she needs that, but he’s not sure he can give it to her. “You understand everything. Even strange women getting into your bed in the middle of the night.”

Coulson smiles. As if Daisy Johnson getting under his sheets in the middle of the night could be an annoyance instead of an unexpected gift.

He doesn’t quite know what he does it. Except that he wants to give her more - not just comfort her, cuddle her. He doesn’t know _what_ , just the vague feeling like she deserves more.

He presses his mouth to the back of her neck.

Daisy freezes for a second, but she doesn’t pull away. Coulson can almost _taste_ the way her brain is making calculations. This is new for him as well, but he helps her make up her mind by dropping a second kiss on her nape, this time pressing his lips more firmly. Daisy makes a noise - a _good_ noise, like she hasn’t been touched like this in years. God, Coulson understands that.

He kisses her a third time, lower on her back now, right above her shirt.

He wonders when Daisy is going to ask what the hell he’s doing.

He has many answers. He’s not an idiot. He has _a whole wall_ dedicated to her. He gets it now. Nothing else matters.

(nothing else ever did)

But Daisy doesn’t ask what the hell he’s doing. Her body seems to hum with acquiescence. Or more than that. Coulson brushes his hips against hers and she sighs, so different to her previous one.

He moves his mouth over her left shoulder, closing his lips over her skin and pressing his tongue against a particularly hard knot of muscles. Daisy arches backwards, as if trying to chase the feeling of his mouth on her.

“I like that, that’s nice,” she tells him.

Her voice is heavy with something Coulson can’t place, because he’s never heard it before.

“More?” he asks, sliding his hand across her stomach.

“Not now,” she says, covering his hands with hers and keeping it there. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry.”

He crossed the line between wanting to give her something and wanting something for himself - which is the last thing Daisy needs. Everyone in her life, they just take and take. Coulson doesn’t want to be something else guilty of hollowing her out.

But Daisy squeezes his hand.

“No, don’t pull away, _please_. It’s… nice.”

He feels her push back against her, tangling her leg between his, and resting her ass against his groin.

(as if feeling his erection pressed against her gave her some sort of comfort)

“You’re so nice,” she repeats, almost whispering at this point.

He wraps his arms around her, more tightly than ever.

“Any time,” he tells her.

Daisy turns her head a bit, and for the first time tonight Coulson can see her eyes. He’s been remembering her wrong all this time; even the pictures from security cameras couldn’t convey. Her eyes are bigger, more expressive than he remembered. And he has been trying very hard to remember.

But those eyes narrow a bit as she faces him over the pillow.

“You mean that. Don’t you?”

Coulson swallows.

It would be almost ridiculous to deny certain things at this point.

He loves her.

(whatever the hell that means)

He wants to be here for her. Even if she comes and goes, even if she steals into his bed in the middle of the night without warning. 

Coulson nods at her, ready to confess.

“I-”

She lifts her hand to his lips.

“Not yet,” she says, looking like she wants to hear it. Looking like she can’t bear to hear it. What does Coulson know about what she’s been through all these months?

He grabs her hand and puts it down.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he offers, hopeful.

“Yeah.”

“You’ll stay?” She nods. He’s not sure whether to believe her. And it’s unfair to expect her to tell him the truth. “I’ll make breakfast.”

He sees the smile in her eyes before it catch up with her mouth.

“Why Agent Coulson, _that’s bribery_.”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard but I’m accused of aiding known criminals,” he says.

It’s meant to be playful but her expression becomes serious. But it doesn’t exactly darken. This close to her face - he can feel her breath on jaw - Coulson can tell every little difference. Even in the darkness.

She touches his face. 

“I know you have,” she tells him, drawing her thumb against his already-forming stubble. He told himself it didn’t matter, if Daisy knew he had been throwing other organizations off her scent while he himself tried to be the one to catch up with her.

Daisy turns her head to the other side.

He hasn’t noticed but morning is beginning to break and there’s a creeping light outside his window. They have been here like this for hours, talking, not talking, cuddling. Coulson can’t remember the last time he felt this close to another person.

(it’s fitting that it’s Daisy)

“Yes,” she is saying, looking at the sky beginning to light up. “I think I’ll stay a while longer.”

With that promise he drops his head, burying his face between her shoulders, closing his eyes and drifting off almost immediately, without meaning to, just letting go. 

He hasn’t been sleeping well. Maybe he was just waiting for this.


End file.
